Fractured Magic: Chapter Eighteen

Fractured Magic is a fantasy webserial about political and personal accountability, ghosts both figurative and literal, and a pair of estranged friends who act like they’ve gone through the world’s messiest divorce.

Far beyond Gallonten’s walls, three orinians, a faerie, and a maranet emerged from a wide storm drain onto the shore of a lagoon. The lagoon’s dark water reflected the overcast sky above, but when rain began to fall, first with a drop and then with a downpour, that image fractured into a thousand pieces.

“I’d only just dried,” Maebhe whined. Beside her, Kieran frowned and pulled his jacket up over his head.

“The storm drains’ll be flooded, soon enough. I’ll have to go back over land,” Ivey complained as well, squinting up at the sky.

He certainly hadn’t dressed for cold, biting rain, and Maebhe found herself shrugging out of her borrowed cloak. “Do you want this?” she asked, but Ivey hurried to stop her.

“Don’t give that up for me, Ms. Cairn. An hour or two of discomfort is nothing to the journey you all have ahead of you.”

When he started up the hill, the others trailed after while Maebhe ran ahead, stopping at the top to blink owlishly down at the plains. It was bright, despite the rain and despite the storm clouds, but maybe that was just her eyes, used to darkness after so long underground.

From where Maebhe stood, the Gallontean plains sloped gently downward and away, their tall grasses bisected by the Unity Road. Small towns and settlements sat scattered along it, as far as she could see, and somewhere beyond it all, Lyryma waited.

Maebhe looked to the north, toward Gallonten’s silhouette on the horizon. From here, she could just make out the spired peak of Unity’s clock tower and a single dusk-soaked sun past a break in the clouds. It fell on the city, giving it a sinister red cast.

“I didn’t realize we’d gotten so far,” she said. Her curls clung to her head, rain-damp, and made her look smaller.

“We have a long way to go yet,” Drys said. “If we want to reach Lyryma this week, we’ll need to cover more ground tonight.”

Ivey pointed to a small cluster of lights far down the road. “I know a farmer who’ll give you a dry place to sleep. He lives on the far side of that town; look for a barn with a blue and gold barn quilt, but don’t let anyone else see you.”

They said their goodbyes at the side of the road, Ivey returning to Gallonten while the others started their journey south. It was a long walk, longer than it had seemed from the hill, and they didn’t reach the barn Ivey mentioned until late into the evening. By then, they were all tired, sore, wet, and irritable. After some bickering, Kieran and Íde went ahead to the farmhouse while Drys and Maebhe stayed back; Drys couldn’t risk venturing into sight with their wings, and Maebhe couldn’t maintain pleasant conversation.

When Kieran and Íde returned, Íde carried keys to the barn and a large pot of soup for them to share and Kieran carried an armful of blankets. His eyes were suspiciously red-rimmed, and at Maebhe’s questioning look, he sniffed, “They were very kind.”

It wasn’t exactly a comfortable night’s sleep for Maebhe, laying on a bed of damp hay with Íde’s feet in her face, but it beat sleeping in the rain. And in the morning, the farmer’s wife woke them early, offering them a ride to the Lyryma Forest.

Maebhe elbowed her twin. “You should cry on people more often, if this is what it gets us,” she whispered.

She spent her morning sprawled in the back of a wide wagon, her head pillowed on Drys’ soft wings while she listened to Kieran and Íde chat with their driver. In the late afternoon, they reached a branch where the road split around Lyryma Forest. One branch led east, circling toward the coastal Unity city of Adriad, and the other west, toward the Alfheimr province. There was no road through the wood, and for good reason.

The farmer’s wife stopped her wagon there, in the shadow of Lyryma’s trees. “You’re sure you want to go that way?” she asked.

Maebhe eyed the trees as she hopped to the ground. From here, they looked like any old trees, nothing scary or supernatural about them. Maybe the stories were wrong again. If Egil could still be alive, then Lyryma could be friendly.

“I’m afraid we don’t have much choice,” Kieran said, shaking the woman’s hand. “Thank you for bringing us this far.”

She gave Kieran’s cheek a fond pat, and Maebhe fought the urge to roll her eyes. Her twin had always been popular among a certain crowd. “Be careful in those woods!” the woman called in a final, ominous parting.

Maebhe waved her goodbyes along with the rest, but turning her back on Lyryma made her shiver. She almost expected the trees to have moved when she turned around again, but they looked exactly as they had before: simple, unassuming, even pretty. There was little green left among them, their leaves changed instead to yellow and orange and the occasional crimson. The wind rustled through them while Maebhe waited for someone else to take the lead. No one did. Looking over, she found them all eyeing the forest with the same unease—all but Drys, who gave her a cheeky wink.

“I don’t know about this,” Íde said, echoing Maebhe’s thoughts.

“It’s just a forest,” Kieran said. It was a poor front; Maebhe could tell he was the most afraid of all of them. “Drys, tell them they’re being ridiculous.”

“They’re wise to fear Lyryma,” Drys said, unhelpfully.

Kieran scoffed. Like Maebhe, spite had a way of spurring him into motion, so he straightened his shoulders and marched into the trees without another word.

“Are you going after him, then?” Maebhe asked Íde. “Because I won’t if you won’t.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And your fiancé.”

When Kieran had passed almost entirely into shadow, he turned and waved his arms at his companions. “Look!” he called. “I entered the forest and nothing bad happened!”

Maebhe pointed at Kieran and screamed. “Kieran, behind you!”

Kieran moved faster than Maebhe thought him able, whirling so frantically that he slipped and landed flat on his tail. Maebhe couldn’t help it; she doubled over laughing, and Drys joined in. Even Íde fought a smile. It took Kieran a moment to realize he’d been tricked, and when he did, he picked himself up and angrily brushed the dirt off his pants. Maebhe could hear him cursing from where she stood.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves! You—” He cut off abruptly, something dragging him into the forest and out of sight.

Íde ran after him first. Maebhe was right at her heels, quickly overtaking her and darting between the trees—only to scramble to stop when Kieran jumped out from behind a tree crying, “Boo!” She had time only to scream before colliding with him. He fell, she tripped over him, and they both landed face-first in the mud.

“You ass!” Maebhe shrieked. She tackled Kieran just as he'd started to pull himself back up, easily catching him in a headlock while he laughed too hard to defend himself. She shoved him into the mud, ignoring his muffled protests, and only released him when Íde arrived. Íde was normally the one to pull Maebhe off him, but this time, she flicked him on the forehead.

“What have I told you about including me in your pranks?”

“Not to do it,” Maebhe said smugly, sitting on her haunches in the mud.

“Don’t you dare,” Íde warned her. “You started this.”

“I quite like you all,” Drys said, catching up to them with a massive grin plastered across their face.

Maebhe wiped the mud off her face and glared at Kieran. As dignified as he could manage, half-covered in mud himself, Kieran said, “Don't look at me like that. I got you into the forest, didn't I?”

Loath as she was to admit it, he was right. All four of them had safely entered Lyryma forest, and as Kieran said, nothing bad had happened. It was strange, though. As normal as the forest had looked from the outside, inside, it was as if it had doubled, tripled in scale: Maebhe couldn’t see the tops of the trees from where she kneeled, but the roots that twisted over the ground were almost as wide as she was. She thought of all the stories she’d heard growing up about orinians vanishing in the woods, about monsters the size of houses and magics that stole your soul and changed you into something unrecognizable.

Well. It was too late to turn back.

Once Maebhe and Kieran had picked themselves up, they pressed on. The deeper they journeyed, the more the trees’ canopies blocked the sunslight, the more the air around them warmed, the more the humidity clung to their hair and skin. Maebhe had to roll up Egil’s muddied cloak and secure it to her pack. She didn’t understand how, but this climate was completely different from Gallonten north of it and Orean south. It defied all reason and science.

Ahead of the perplexed orinians, Drys sighed contentedly and stretched their wings, the only one unbothered by the changing weather. Maebhe watched the light dance across their golden feathers and let it distract her.

“Drys, what did you do to get locked up?” she called. In yesterday’s chaos, it hadn’t occurred to her to ask sooner. She didn’t think she’d been traveling with a murderer, but it was best to check.

Kieran elbowed her. “Don’t be rude.”

“As if you didn’t already ask,” Maebhe hissed, elbowing back.

“I didn’t!”

“I don’t mind,” Drys said magnanimously. “I killed a Unity representative.”

Kieran and Maebhe stopped slapping at each other and stared, wide-eyed. “Really?” Íde asked.

Drys scoffed. “No. I flew too near Gallonten. Unity thought I was stealing secrets and sent a police dragon after me.”

“Oh,” Maebhe said.

“You sound disappointed, my dear May-vuh. Would you rather I’d killed someone?” they teased. Not waiting for an answer, they laughed and shook out their wings. “It’s good to be back. It’ll be even better to return to Home.”

“You’ve said that a few times, now. Don’t you mean return home?” Kieran asked.

“To Home,” Drys repeated. “Home has many names, but we use this one with outsiders because it gives you the best understanding of what Home is. You could also call it a city, or a hub. Or what do you call Orean? A city-state? Millions of nympherai make their homes in this forest, scattered to the winds, but during the dangerous seasons we all return to Home.”

“Dangerous seasons,” Íde echoed. “What does that mean?”

 “Lyryma doesn’t follow winter, spring, or summer like the outside world. It has its own cycles, and during some of those cycles, we need the extra strength that numbers provide,” Drys said. The concerned look the orinians shared didn’t escape them, and they chuckled. “Don’t you believe your own stories? When we say this forest is magic, it’s not superstition, and it’s not exaggeration. We have science and reason, too, but we still say this forest is impossible. But I don’t need to lecture—you’ll see, soon enough.”

Maebhe realized something, then. “Are there frìth in Home?”

“Of course. Have you never met one?”

“Never,” Maebhe said, shaking her head. “Until yesterday, I’d never even met a faerie.”

“Hmm. We used to visit Orean, on occasion, but I can’t remember if that was two, twenty, or two-hundred years ago.”

“You don’t remember?” Maebhe asked. For the first time, it struck her that Drys might be older than they looked. She’d only ever been around orinians; she’d forgotten how wonderful and diverse the world was. “Did frìth visit Orean, too?”

“Not since the current king took reign, at least,” Kieran answered.

“A word of advice, then: they’re very different from humans. The frìth of Home are the oldest people alive today, some of them even older than Lyryma itself,” Drys said. “That affects how they move through the world. Be patient with them; they don’t understand how little time you or I have, by comparison.”

Ears pressed to her head, Maebhe craned her neck, the trees seeming to stretch on without end. She couldn’t imagine anything older than them.

“They also won’t hear of the outside world unless it’s on their terms,” Drys continued. “So I wouldn’t mention this kidnapping and war business.”

“But—,” Kieran started. At a warning look from Drys, he shut his mouth again. “Understood.”

 “No arguments from you, Ms. Maebhe?” they asked, turning to walk backwards so they could face her. Maebhe’s eyes widened. Instead of answering, she cried, “Look out!” just as Drys backed into a tree.

With an oof and a dazed step forward, Drys twisted to look up at the tree trunk in surprise. None of them had noticed it there moments before. It was as if it had materialized out of the foliage, its gnarled, coarse bark covered in strange blue drawings. As Maebhe stepped forward, trying to get a better look at the drawings, the tree trunk—the crooked, furry tree trunk—moved back. It picked itself right off the ground and jumped back several feet, a cloven hoof bigger than Drys’ head striking the ground with a thud.

With growing horror, Maebhe lifted her gaze.

It wasn’t a tree trunk at all. It was a leg.

Bit of a cliffhanger for this one! This and the next chapter were actually originally going to be combined but ended up getting too long, even for my standards. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens to the orinians next week. Thank you for reading!

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